But the job of a manager is to get his team to believe, so Piniella went to work right after Seattle’s win in Game 5 of the ALCS. He said the pressure was on the Yankees. Piniella stuck by his words prior to the start of Game 6 last night.

“I told my team the other day just to relax and go play baseball,” said Piniella. “That [the Yankees] are the ones that are carrying the burden now. I’m sure they will disagree with that. But it’s a good selling point, anyway.”

Not good enough to beat the Yankees, who will meet the Mets the World Series, after beating Seattle, 9-7. Piniella, who played for this storied franchised, managed it and served as general manager for a short time, knows there is something special about pinstripes.

If his Mariners were going to come back from a 3-1 deficit, they’d have to earn it. The Yankees make you earn it, he knew.

“You know, these guys have a wealth of experience and they have got some talent over there,” said Piniella. “They can be beaten but you’ve got to go out there and play them and beat them. They are not going to give you ballgames.”

The Yankees snatched Game 6 and the American League title from the Mariners and will try to win their third straight title in the first Subway Series in 44 years.

Seattle got out to a 4-0 lead, scoring twice in the first and the third. The Mariners had Orlando Hernandez in trouble. They were trying to push the Yankees to a deciding Game 7 the way straphangers push into a crowded subway car at rush hour.

Seattle took a 4-3 lead into the seventh. Brooklyn’s John Halama, who didn’t have his best stuff, had battled for the Mariners. The Subway Series seemingly was on hold for at least another day.

Then the Yankees, who Piniella acknowledged were more vulnerable than in recent years when they won the World Series in 1996, 1998, and 1999, erupted. Once again the player who got run over by the Yankee express was reliever Arthur Rhodes.

He came on in the seventh and when he left, a 4-3 lead had turned into a 9-4 deficit. Rhodes had been victimized in Game 2 as well. He inherited a 1-0 lead and David Justice led off the eighth with a double. Last night Justice’s three-run home run blew open the game.

Rhodes gave up four earned runs on four hits and didn’t record and out. He gave up three unearned runs on four hits in one-third of inning in Game 2.

“We would not be here without him,” Piniella said of Rhodes.

The Yankees wouldn’t be in the World Series for a third straight year, without Rhodes, too. He learned what players must do when they face the Yankees. Regular season success makes no difference in October.

“It’s that confidence,” Piniella said of the Yankees. “It’s that swagger. It’s that feeling that we’ve done it before; we can do it again. Let’s rise up to the occasion. They really don’t get rattled over there. They play their game.”

Even when the Mariners scratched out three runs against Hernandez and Mariano Rivera in the eighth, the Yankees still held a 9-7 lead. Rivera’s playoff scoreless streak was snapped.

The Mariners gave the Yankees, and fans in this city who are yearning for a Subway Series, a scare. But as Piniella knew, inevitably the Yankees were still too good.

You’ve got to give them credit for what they have been able to do over the there,” said Piniella. “It’s something that really doesn’t happen in sports too often anymore.”